Chapter 5 - The Attorney Who Changed SidesSamuel Voss had been dead eleven years.
His law firm was not.
By three that afternoon, Roman sat inside a conference room forty floors above downtown Chicago facing Eleanor Voss, Samuel’s daughter and former junior partner.
She was fifty-one, composed, and clearly unhappy to see him.
“You don’t make appointments like normal people?”
Roman placed a photocopy of Arthur’s termination letter on her table.
“Normal people don’t discover dead attorneys may have forged their authorization.”
Eleanor’s expression changed.
“Where did you get that?”
“Answer the question first.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
Roman almost smiled.
He liked her immediately.
Lily sat beside him.
Arthur had returned to the motel.
Roman had asked Lily to come because he no longer trusted conversations without witnesses.
Eleanor studied the letter.
“My father’s office prepared this template.”
“For Marcus?”
“For Kane Family Administration.”
“Did my father authorize it?”
“Vincent?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know.”
Roman leaned forward.
“Did I?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly to be uncertain.
Roman stared.
“You’re sure?”
“I was a junior associate then. Your name was discussed because Marcus wanted the letters to appear final.”
Lily’s eyes narrowed.
“Appear final?”
Eleanor looked at her.
“And you are?”
“Someone who doesn’t have twenty-two years of family loyalty complicating the truth.”
Roman glanced at Lily.
Eleanor did too.
Then she sighed.
“Fair enough.”
She stood and retrieved a box from a locked cabinet.
“My father left instructions that certain records were never to be destroyed.”
Roman felt his pulse increase.
“Why?”
“Because he was afraid.”
“Of Marcus?”
“Of your family.”
That answer landed differently.
Eleanor placed three folders on the table.
The first contained trust amendments.
The second contained correspondence from Elizabeth.
The third bore Roman’s name.
Roman opened it.
Inside was a memorandum dated eleven years earlier.
SUBJECT: HOUSEHOLD TRANSITION.
Samuel Voss had written:
Marcus Kane requests removal of remaining legacy employees associated with Elizabeth Kane. He states Roman approves. No direct confirmation obtained from Roman Kane.
Roman looked at Eleanor.
“Your father knew Marcus was using my name.”
“Yes.”
“And he helped anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Marcus threatened to expose what my father had done after Elizabeth’s funeral.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“What did he do?”
Eleanor opened the second folder.
“My father backdated documents.”
Lily whispered, “The trust transfers?”
Eleanor nodded.
“Not all of them. But enough.”
Roman stared at the papers.
“Why would Elizabeth’s own attorney do that?”
“Because Vincent asked him to.”
Roman felt another crack open beneath his understanding.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
Eleanor’s voice softened.
“Roman, your father was trying to keep federal investigators away from the family while he searched for your mother.”
Roman stood abruptly.
“So he stole from her trust?”
“He told my father the transfers were temporary.”
“Everyone in this family loved that word.”
Eleanor flinched.
Roman walked toward the window.
Below them, Chicago moved in indifferent lines of traffic.
Eleanor continued.
“The original idea was to shift control into Marcus’s hands for ninety days so regulators would not freeze the assets after Elizabeth’s reported death.”
“Why Marcus?”
“He had no direct ownership of the charitable entities.”
“At the time.”
“Yes.”
Roman turned.
“And then?”
“Then Elizabeth was discovered alive.”
Roman waited.
“My father told Vincent the death-based transfers were potentially fraudulent if she was alive.”
“So reverse them.”
“He tried.”
“Marcus refused.”
Roman laughed once.
Coldly.
“Of course.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“It became worse.”
She showed him a letter from Samuel to Vincent.
Vincent—
Marcus claims Elizabeth signed an emergency continuation authorization on April 14.
I believe the signature is false.
Roman stared at the date.
April fourteenth.
Two days after the fire.
While Elizabeth was officially dead.
Lily leaned closer.
“That’s impossible.”
“That,” Eleanor said, “is why my father became frightened.”
Roman read further.
If the signature is false, Marcus has committed fraud. If Elizabeth is alive, we must restore her authority immediately.
A handwritten note appeared beneath it.
V—
Do not move until we locate E. Roman may be leverage.
—S.
Roman looked at Eleanor.
“Your father thought someone might use me against Vincent.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“He never wrote it.”
“Marcus?”
“Probably.”
“Probably isn’t evidence.”
Eleanor nodded.
“That sounds like Helen.”
Roman gave her a sharp look.
“You knew Helen?”
“She came here twice.”
“When?”
“After my father died.”
Roman stared.
Everyone had pieces.
Nobody had trusted anyone enough to assemble them.
That was how conspiracies survived.
Not through brilliance.
Through fear.
“What killed your father?”
“Heart attack.”
“Convenient.”
Eleanor’s eyes hardened.
“Do not turn every death into murder because your family lied to you.”
Roman accepted the rebuke.
“What happened before he died?”
“He prepared an affidavit.”
She opened the third folder.
The document carried Samuel Voss’s signature and notarization.
It stated that Marcus had ordered several household termination letters drafted under Roman’s authority without Roman’s direct consent.
It also stated that Samuel had participated in backdating Elizabeth Kane Foundation documents after her funeral at Vincent Kane’s request.
Roman read every line.
Then he reached the final paragraph.
I later learned that Mrs. Kane survived the event believed to have caused her death. I further learned that Marcus Kane possessed a medical power-of-attorney document purporting to bear Elizabeth Kane’s signature, although I had never prepared such an instrument.
Roman looked up.
“Medical power of attorney.”
Eleanor nodded.
“If Marcus controlled that document, he could influence where she was treated.”
“And who saw her.”
“Yes.”
“And maybe where she was moved.”
“Yes.”
Roman’s phone vibrated.
A message from his attorney.
We found Hawthorne.
Roman opened the attached summary.
The old trust had not disappeared.
It had changed names twice.
Its surviving assets now controlled part of Kane Logistics.
Marcus’s company.
Estimated current value:
$186 million.
Roman stared.
Eleanor read his face.
“You found something.”
“My mother’s money built Marcus’s empire.”
Lily whispered, “Then the servants weren’t the real target.”
Roman looked at her.
She continued.
“They were evidence.”
Roman nodded slowly.
Arthur remembered Elizabeth.
Margaret knew her schedules.
Helen had the diary.
Walter controlled security logs.
Each one carried a piece.
Someone had removed them all in one coordinated project.
Eleanor closed the folders.
“There’s one more thing.”
Roman looked at her.
“My father met Vincent three days before Vincent died.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said he left records.”
“He did.”
Eleanor swallowed.
“But one file is missing.”
“Which?”
“A sealed deposition.”
Roman’s voice became quiet.
“Who checked it out?”
Eleanor hesitated.
Then turned her laptop around.
The digital archive showed a scanned access receipt.
Eleven years earlier.
Requested by:
MARCUS KANE.
Roman stared at the signature.
May you like
![92 The Girl They Called Broke Was a Billionaire’s Daughter—But Her Father’s Arrival Exposed a Secret Powerful People Had Buried for Years]](https://cdn.treeiq.biz/site_590/2026/11/clone-0-0915d882-53d7-4d17-b43a-a010ca1a1068.webp)
Marcus had taken the deposition forty-eight hours before Samuel Voss died.
And five days before Vincent Kane was found dead in his study.
Related Stories
